


On a Cold Night in Ferelden

by inquisitorsmabari



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Comfort, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Huddling For Warmth, One Shot, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 19:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19280002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitorsmabari/pseuds/inquisitorsmabari
Summary: One a cold night in Ferelden, Ellinor finds herself wishing she had packed warmer clothes for their journey. Luckily, Cullen is around to help.





	On a Cold Night in Ferelden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tollofthebells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tollofthebells/gifts).



> This is a gift for tollofthebells (bitchesofostwick) so features their OC Ellinor Trevelyan (who you can read all about on their tumblr and ao3 pages)

It had been some time since Ellinor had retired to her canvas tent and clambered beneath the thin woollen bed covers, but she hadn’t slept. How could she? Every breath she took burst from her lips in a grey-white cloud, every movement of her fingers was a shudder. Her mouth shook, her teeth chattered so loudly that she was sure that the whole camp would hear them. How could she fall asleep when it was so, so cold?

But there was one other reason why she stayed awake, and it was the same reason why she kept herself awake on most nights, even when all she wanted to do was fall into a peaceful, dream filled sleep.

What if he were to stop by?

The nights were the time in which they stole a moment to themselves, hiding in the shadows that danced around the slithers of moonlight while the rest of the Inquisition slept in ignorance to their secrecy.

But beneath the light of the sun, they dared not speak. Or, rather, _she_ dared not. He, on the other hand, had insisted on talking to her at almost every opportunity since they had rode through the gates of Skyhold with their small retinue of soldiers. Most of the time, he was asking her if she was cold.

“You know, it gets cold in Ferelden,” he had warned her as they had set off on the winding path that led down from the Frostback Mountains and into the heart of the Ferelden countryside. “Did you pack any warmer gloves? Or a thicker coat, at least?”

“Save your concerns for the task at hand, Cullen,” she had rebuked with only a fleeting glance in his direction. “I have been to Ferelden many times now, I know what I’m doing.” 

But he was right to be concerned.

Skyhold was cold, but Ferelden was a different kind of cold, and this night was far more bitter than any of the ones she had spent here previously. It was as if Skyhold was held in a perpetual state of autumn, while Ferelden was dipping its toes into a bitter winter, preparing to take a deep plunge into its icy depths.

But that wouldn’t be a problem, providing that she wasn’t here when it did so.

_Maker, why couldn’t she have just turned back to get another coat_.

He had offered her one, of course. But how could she have said yes? What would they think of her wearing her commander’s coat?

“I am _fine_ , thank you,” she had insisted with a retort that was loud enough to make the nearest guard jump out of his skin. 

She wasn’t fine. Even then, her fingers had shaken as she handled the minerals their soldiers had been collecting. Now, her fingers couldn’t even bring themselves to shake anymore. They had given in. 

But _she_ would not.

She threw the blanket over her head with a grumble of indignation and hugged her knees to her chest, with her arms snaking around her torso to clutch at the clothes which did little to protect her back from the cold. She could not have curled up any tighter if she tried. And yet, the cold still seemed to bite at every bone in her body. 

Now she would not move, and she would fall asleep, and she would forget about the cold until the morning. No one would have to know that her teeth had chattered as she did so. No one would have to know that her fingers appeared to be turning blue. No one would have to know that she had risked hypothermia to wait for a man who may not even come.

But sleep continued to evade her.

There was a hint of movement outside of her tent that even the safety of her blanket couldn’t shield her from – footsteps marred by the squelch of damp mud hidden beneath a thin layer of frost covered grass. 

Could that be him?

She chastised herself quickly, cursing in the name of the Maker as she did so. But while the voice of reason was telling her not to give in, to ignore the tug on her heartstrings that made her so keen to find an answer to her question, another voice was urging her to uncurl herself from her ball and peel back the blanket inch by inch.

She listened to that second voice.

A rustle of the tent flaps premeditated Cullen’s arrival and, soon enough, he stood with the top of his head brushing against the canvas, watching her with his amber coloured eyes bringing with them a warmth to the cold night.

She felt warmer already, even if her shuddering fingers and numb toes may argue otherwise.

“I’ve um...brought you some things,” Cullen announced as he closed the tent flap behind him and moved towards her inch by inch, step by step, until he was close enough to sit himself between her and the blanket she had been made to abandon. That was when she saw what was in his arms. It was another blanket, possibly the one from his own bed, paired with what appeared to be one of his spare pairs of gloves. He always brought spares with him, of everything. That was just how he was. “I thought you might be cold.”

“I’m f–”

“No you aren’t,” he insisted with a laugh of disbelief while his hands gently took a hold of hers. She could feel the warmth of his skin begin to seep through his gloves, thawing the ice that had surely rested upon the skin of her fingertips, and bringing to her shivering skin a warmth that no pair of gloves could have hoped to have given her. “Maker, Ellinor…”

His words evolved into a sigh, his sigh evolved into a kiss – sweet, gentle, warm. Where his lips made contact with her skin, a fire had ignited that burnt its way upwards from her fingertips to her hands, from her hands to her arms, her arms to the deepest chasm of her chest where her heart shook off the bitter sting of the cold Ferelden night and gave into the comfort, the protection, he could offer her from its icy wrath.

Warmth had begun to return to her, but she only truly felt safe from the cold bite of the night air when he encouraged her to lay with him upon the bed, the two blankets laying neatly over the pair of them while he brought an arm over her body and tucked her into his hold. She was encased by his love and his affection. And with that love, that affection, the cold, even though it was still there, present in the air around them, didn’t bother her.

He kissed her as they lay together beneath the woollen blankets in defiance of the cold night air. It was a soft brush of his lips against the back of her neck, only gentle, only brief. But that was when the last remnants of cold finally left her.

That was when she fell asleep.


End file.
